Page:Chipperfield--Unseen Hands.djvu/46

34 ment paused in what was evidently for him a vast mental effort. "It was about three—no, it was after; it was just twenty-five minutes past! I remember because I'd sent Dooley over to kalsomine some ceilings on Forty-fourth Street, an' he'd ought to've been back here by two-thirty at most. I'm payin' the boys by the time; an' he must have loafed on his job, for he never got back until twenty-five past three. I'd just started in to bawl him out when the 'phone rang."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Kenny. We've told the other people who claim to have been sent for that there was nothing doing; you had the job. Good morning."

In the taxi once more cutting across town Barry Odell remarked:

"The residence of Mr. Lorne and his stepchildren is known as the Meade house, then. It must have belonged to his wife's people."

"Yes, for generations. She and this spinster sister who has survived her each owned a half interest in it. When she married Halsey Chalmers he built a house for her up on Fifth Avenue; but after his death she sold it, and she and her family, including Miss Meade of course, came back to live in the old home. Richard Lorne could never persuade her to leave it." Titheredge paused and added: "It isn't one of these ornate, miniature palaces they are building nowadays, you know; just a solid, substantial old brownstone mansion, and rather a landmark in its way."

"You spoke of this Eugene who had the narrow escape last night, and of the youngest son who was a hunchback, and the girls," Odell observed. "The daughters are both grown up?"